


Life Happens

by drowning_in_otps



Series: Life Happens [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: And Bruce is trying, Angst, But he sucks at it, Dad!Jason, Eventual Romance, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Child Abuse, and Dick being a trusting fool, lots of Jason being an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:10:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drowning_in_otps/pseuds/drowning_in_otps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” - Allen Saunders </p><p>Jason always prided himself on his ability to plan things out. Things might not have always gone his way, and he may or may not deviate from his own plans way more often than he'd like, but for the most part, he had things figured out.</p><p>You know, despite the fact that he was still public enemy numero uno in Bruce's eyes and was the awkward third wheel to whatever the hell was going on between Roy and Kori. </p><p>But there were certain things in life that you could never plan for, no matter how fucking hard you tried. Finding a baby in a drug den just happened to be one of those things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zillabird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zillabird/gifts).



> This is a gift for my best friend and RP partner, SomethingWild. Without her, I would have long since gone insane with all of these headcanons and stories bouncing all about in my skull. Credit to Rubitan for the idea of Thomas Grayson - an idea that spawned months and months of RP between SomethingWild and myself until I finally kicked myself into gear and started writing a fic around it!
> 
> Also note that I am a full time college student with a part time job, so I will /try/ to update as often as I possibly can, but we know how that goes!

**Chapter One**

Hidden by his helmet, Jason’s lips curled back into a sneer as he stepped around the broken and bloodied bodies scattered across the area. The room could have been mistaken for being splashed with red paint if not for the strong stench of blood hanging within the air. Jason could say what he wanted about these scumbags, but at least they knew how to pack some very serious heat.

Jason would have been insulted if they hadn’t. It had been pretty damn obvious that he’d be paying them a visit soon once that news story broke out about the ten year old little girl attending Gotham North Elementary who had just died from an overdose of methamphetamines. It had taken him an hour of busting some heads and cracking some skulls out on the streets to get a name and a location, and that was pretty much all she wrote. They might’ve had some hefty firepower on their side, but firepower was nothing in the hands of morons who didn’t know how to _use_ it. Jason, however, did.

He really had no fucking mercy for anyone who messed with kids, whether it was by dealing them shit that they had no fucking business dealing to kids or anything else under the moon.

Jason eyed the bodies consideringly, wondering how to best use them to set an example of just what the Red Hood would do to anyone caught dealing to kids. Because this wasn’t the first time in the past few weeks that some punks had gotten far too big for their damn britches and thought they could operate outside of the Hood’s rules. He didn’t get very long to think it over, however; a noise deeper within the ratty, hole in the wall drug den causing him to instantly be on the alert.

His eyes narrowed behind the helmet as he crept through the dirt covered pigsty, telling himself that it wasn’t what it sounded like. Jason knew his luck was pretty shitty, but it wasn’t _that_ bad. And that was saying something coming from someone whose mother took a fucking smoke break while a fucked up psycho was breaking practically every bone in her son’s body.

No amount of silent begging and pleading could change the fact that there, lying within a small makeshift pen off to the corner of the room Jason had moved into, was a small baby that looked to be red in the cheeks - from what Jason could _see_ of his or her cheeks since the tyke was covered in dirt and grime - from wailing his or her little lungs out.

 Jason let out a quiet curse. Why couldn’t this sort of shit happen to Dickiebird or some other _respectable_ member of society? Not that he’d classify that bastard as respectable by any means or stretching of the definition, but still. Why him?

He grimaced as he bent down to pick up the crying baby, feeling way too far out of his element. It was pretty easy to tell that the little brat hadn’t exactly been getting the kind of attention babies needed considering the stench coming off of him - her - whatever it was. Jason didn’t see nearly the amount of fat babies were supposed to retain on them on the child, meaning the kid was probably pretty damn malnourished too.

Kind of made him wish he’d had the time to make those bastards suffer just a little bit more.

Confliction flashed within Jason’s own hidden eyes as he watched the baby in his arms hiccup slightly before looking up at him with big, wet eyes, a soft sniffling sound leaving it before a little hand pressed against the side of Jason’s helmet. The baby quieted down and simply stared up at him, and Jason cursed under his breath once more under the gaze of those big, blue eyes.

Why him?

~*~

 

Jason exhaled quietly, trying his best to keep some semblance of calm despite the dread filling him, eyes gazing up at the intimidating image the manor seemed to make. 

Alfred had buzzed him in through the gates already, but not before first expressing how much of a blessing it was to hear from him after so long.

Some blessing.

If the situation hadn’t had Jason so on the edge and more than a little bit scattered, he might have snorted and asked Alfred if he’d like a return on that blessing.

There’d also been a tone beneath it that said that he only hoped that Jason wasn’t there to stir up some more trouble. and Jason couldn’t blame him for it because, let’s face it, Alfred was the one that usually had to deal with clean up duty whenever tempers flared.  Particularly between him and the big guy, though from what he’d heard from the Replacement, the Demon Spawn could be added into that mix too. Having had the unfortunate chance to meet the kid, Jason wasn’t surprised.

Jason swallowed back whatever trepidation and loss of pride he might have been feeling and rang the doorbell, careful not to jostle the sleeping baby laying against his shoulder and wrapped up in his jacket. He didn’t have to wait long before the door was opening, and Alfred had never been more of a sight for sore eyes. “Hey, Alfred.”

 To the elderly man’s credit, he didn’t even bat an eye at the sight of the new addition in Jason’s arms. “Master Jason,” he greeted in turn, stepping aside to allow the man in. There was a warmth in his tone that Jason would sure as hell deny missing. After closing the door behind the vigilante, he turned and looked at the sleeping baby fully for the first time. He raised an eyebrow slightly. “Am I correct in assuming your little passenger is the reason for your impromptu visit?”

Jason hesitated, but only for a moment. “Um, yeah. He...she is.”

Jason could practically _feel_ just what Alfred thought on the subject, but the man didn’t speak a word about it, and Jason could only assume Alfred realized from looking at him that Jason hadn’t exactly had the _time_ to check yet. The most recent bloodstains weren’t exactly easy to look over.

Alfred simply nodded in response before leading the way, accurately predicting that Jason would follow. “Master Bruce retired to his study, but I’ve taken the liberty to inform him that you were stopping by.” Jason could hear what Alfred _didn’t_ say, what he left off at the end. _To make sure Bruce wasn’t caught off guard._ And he couldn’t blame him since, if anyone would’ve asked Jason if he’d ever willingly set foot in the manor again, he’d have called them insane.

Jason stopping by without being forced to would definitely be a surprise, and Jason was somewhat surprised Bruce hadn’t been the one to answer the door considering the man’s blatant distrust of him.

“What was the big guy doing before I got here?” He asked lightly, trying to gauge what sort of mood he’d be walking into. How wary he should be.

Alfred glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, his lips twitching upward a little. “Some light reading, Master Jason.” Translation: Bruce had fallen asleep going over some case files. Alright, Jason could deal with a freshly awakened Bruce. Hopefully, the man would still be out of it enough not to make as big of a deal over this as Jason just _knew_ he was going to make.

And that also answered his question on why Bruce hadn’t been the one to answer the door.

Alfred stopped beside the archway that Jason could remember from memories long past connected to the den that was used as Bruce’s study, and he exhaled quietly, really not sure he was ready for this. His jaw clenched, only able to imagine what Bruce was going to say to him. This was the absolute last place he wanted to be. Bruce was the absolute last person he wanted to _talk_ to. But Jason didn’t have any other options.

 _The little guy or girl currently dreaming of sugarplums_ didn’t have any other options because God knew Jason couldn’t take the kid in himself. He’d been out of Gotham for too damn long, didn’t have _nearly_ as many connections around here as he’d had when he’d first started his reign as the Red Hood. No connections, no food for Junior here.

Not that he’d have taken the kid in even if that wasn’t an issue. Jason was the absolute last person who should be in charge of raising a kid, of being responsible for another living being.

“Sir?” It was only then that Jason realized that Alfred had been attempting to gain his attention for the last couple minutes or so. The butler raised an eyebrow at him silently, gloved fingers pressing lightly against the side of the archway as he looked back at him with concern written across his features.

Jason shook himself out of it. “Yeah, Alfie?” He tried to crack a grin at him, though he knew he’d failed from the unconvinced expression the man was wearing.

Alfred sighed quietly and turned to face him fully. “Master Jason,” he said, voice quiet. “You are welcome here just as you once were. No matter what has occurred throughout the past years, it does not cancel out the memories of before.” His lips curved upward gently, the smile as warm and kind as Jason remembered it. The kind man gave Jason’s shoulder a light squeeze and then he was walking away, leaving Jason without a chance to respond

Jason frowned, but quickly dismissed it with a shake of his head. He had bigger problems to deal with right now. He knew it was Alfred’s own way of saying that he still had a home here, but Alfred had the tendency to see things through rose colored lenses because this place had stopped being home for Jason a hell of a long time ago.

He turned his gaze towards the room once more and his jaw clenched. He didn’t want to go in there. He really, really, _really_ didn’t. But…

He glanced down at the baby’s face and exhaled hard, resolve hardening enough to do what needed to be done.

“...Jason,” Bruce greeted after a small pause as Jason closed the door behind him, the baby partially hidden by his turned body.

“Bruce,” he said in turn, pausing before turning around to face him, shoulders tense and jaw clenched. Ready to run. Even if Bruce hadn't known this was a last ditch effort previously, he’d have had to be blind not to see just what exactly Jason thought of being here.

Bruce tensed almost unnoticeably, eyes sweeping over the sleeping child before they moved up to Jason’s face, expression growing almost unreadable. “Jason,” he began in a deceptively calm tone, one that his sharp gaze easily contradicted, “why do you have an infant?”

Jason flashed a tight lipped smirk, unbowed. “New fashion statement. Have to keep up with the trends, you know?” Bruce’s eyes narrowed at him, his lips pressing tightly together and forming a thin line, and Jason sighed, some of the anger draining from him. His eyes rose to meet Bruce’s, looking tired.

“I found him in a drug den downtown, over near Central Heights. His buddies weren’t the best sort - they were the ones who were behind little Catrina Filigato’s OD earlier this week. After I finished cleaning up the place,” he could _feel_ the judgment and derision coming off of Bruce in waves, and Jason had no doubt that the dried blood covering him _really_ wasn’t helping the situation, “I found this little guy or gal laying in a pile of their own filth. I didn’t - “

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here. With it,” Bruce interrupted. “When the responsible thing would have been to turn the child over to the proper authorities.”

Jason grimaced at the thought. “Shit, B. You can’t _seriously_ be asking me why I didn’t drop the kid off in a breadbasket down at the station, right? We both know the system’s fucked up as it is. Throwing a kid right on into that mess...that’s just fucking _cruel_.”

“Then what do you expect to happen?” Bruce questioned, raising an eyebrow at him. His eyes took in the way Jason’s flickered away, the way his son’s jaw clenched, and a wave of incredulousness washed over him. He pushed it down swiftly. “No, Jason.”

“Why not?” Jason demanded, frustration leaping into his eyes. It wasn’t like he was asking for a hell of a lot here.

Okay, maybe he was. But that didn’t change a single damn thing.

“Why not?” Bruce repeated. He was already shaking his head at Jason, his own frustration slipping out before he could stop it. “You’re asking me to take in a _child_ \- one I have no legal obligations to attend to might I add - because you suddenly have a problem with the orphanages in Gotham. That’s what it needs, Jason. An orphanage. A chance at finding a family.”

"An orphanage is the _last_ thing this kid needs," Jason growled, disbelief tinged with anger stirring within him. “Trust me, I'd know. Fuck, the streets are better than those hellholes. You took in everyone else; why is a baby any fucking different? I'm sure Alfred wouldn't mind." There was no way in hell Jason was going to let this kid end up in an orphanage where he would just be neglected and abused, and considering the way things ran in Gotham, that was more of a guarantee than anywhere else.

"When I took each and every one of you in, you were all old enough to learn how to protect yourselves. There is a huge difference between that and what you're asking me to do," Bruce ground out, pinching the bridge of his nose as he struggled and failed to keep calm. "There are hundreds of children that need homes, Jason. I can't take care of all of them. Let the system handle this."

"Fuck the system!" Jason spat angrily before wincing as the baby in his arms wailed loudly. Shit, he hadn’t meant to wake the kid up. He absently shifted his hold to pat the small infant on the back before returning his attention to the man in front of him. "Most of those kids end up out on the streets anyway," he hissed lowly to Bruce. "The others get abused and taken advantage of. You can't wish that on a fucking baby."

To Bruce’s credit, there _was_ a hint of regret that flashed within his eyes, but it was far too small and brief to do either of them any good. “Be that as it may, Jason, the bad doesn’t outnumber the good and we’d be doing the child a disservice by assuming whomever it came in contact with would mean it harm.”

That wasn’t what Jason wanted to hear, however, and that was made obvious by the way he was shaking his head before Bruce had even finished speaking. “No,” he stated bluntly, eyes hard even as he gently swayed with the baby to try and calm him or her down. “What you’re going to do is shove your little suggestion up your ass and then come back to me with a _real_ solution, got that? One that _doesn’t_ cause little chickadee here to wind up in another shit hole just as bad as the one I rescued him from.”

Bruce’s lips curled back, his displeasure thinning them noticeably. “If you can’t bring yourself to take the child to an orphanage so that he or she can have the hope of a new family, then give it to me and I’ll take it there myself,” he ordered in a way that was all Batman, which was the absolute worst thing he could have done if the way Jason stiffened was anything to go by.

“You know what?” He retorted, anger flashing within his eyes even as despair coiled within his stomach. “Fuck. You. I never should have come here in the first,” the last part was more muttered to himself than Bruce. Why the hell had he thought that Bruce could help in the first place?

 _Because he was desperate_ , a voice in the back of his mind answered for him, and shit if that wasn’t the truth. Jason didn’t have a single dime to his name at the moment and…yeah, while he was used to roughing it and had no qualms about it, a baby physically _couldn’t_ rough it. It needed fed, like, every few hours or something like that. Needed diapers and clothes and fuck if Jason knew what else.

And all that the baby needed were things that Jason couldn’t give.

Shit, this wasn't going the way he’d hoped. Jason swallowed before his eyes hardened. "So much for the great Batman, protector of the innocent," he muttered bitterly as he brought the small baby up closer against his chest, doing his best to calm the child’s cries wordlessly, no matter how awkward and unusual the motions felt. He turned on heel to head back towards the door. "I knew coming here was a mistake." It always was. Why the hell he hadn’t stopped giving Bruce chances was beyond him.

But that ended now.

Bruce’s eyes followed after Jason until his son disappeared from sight, feeling a heavy weight settle within his chest. Once again, he wasn’t able to give Jason what he wanted.

When Alfred had woken him up to let him know that Jason was here to see him, he had imagined this conversation going in an entirely different direction. Well, the ending he had expected. Whenever they were forced into contact, Jason never failed to leave in an angry huff at the end of it. (Something, Alfred had said, that he had the penchant of doing as well though Bruce was unable to see how).

A child though…

What on earth was Jason thinking?

Once tempers settled, Bruce decided he would do what needed to be done. As he always had.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Surprisingly, Bruce didn’t stop him from leaving, and yeah, some part of Jason had expected the man to all but tear the kid from his arms. He wasn’t discounting that happening yet though. People who said that he was like a ticking time bomb had clearly never met the real Bruce Wayne.

Who did stop him in the foyer before he could completely storm out of the manor surprised him, but then again, it really shouldn’t have.

“Master Jason. Might I have a moment?” Alfred requested. Jason closed his eyes and counted to ten before turning back around.

“What do you want, Alfred? I have some things that need getting done.”

The elderly man raised a cool eyebrow at him before stepping closer towards both Jason and the baby. “Master Bruce seems rather determined to put the child into a home, though I’m not entirely certain it hasn’t found one already.” Yeaaaaaah, Jason wasn’t so sure about that. The kid deserved a hell of a lot more than anything he would be able to supply. Getting attached was the last thing either of them needed.

Alfred smiled at him, the action small but just as warm as ever. “May I?” He inquired, holding his arms out. “I don’t believe we should allow the child to suffer in its own stench for much longer. Don’t you agree?”

Jason hesitated. The longer he stayed here, the more of a risk there was that Bruce would come back out to try to take the kid away from him. Out of habit, his hand drifted down to feel through the inside of his waistband where his gun was resting snuggly before he let his hand drop with a sigh. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He reluctantly handed the baby over to Alfred, eyes sharply taking in the way Alfred held him and making a note of it for himself.

He hadn’t exactly had many chances to hold babies in the past, so it helped to watch a bit from example.

And it wasn’t like he couldn’t fight Bruce off if need be. Jason didn’t know what he was going to do with the kid, but letting him/her get sent to an orphanage was definitely not on the list of possibilities there.

He followed Alfred back through the manor and towards a back room, eyes constantly drawn back to the kid laying against Alfred’s shoulder, soft little gurgles and other tiny noises slipping from the… boy? Girl? Damn it, he really needed to figure out what the kid was so that he didn’t have to keep calling it an it in his head. Distantly, he thought the room looked familiar, though he couldn’t quite place why until his eyes caught onto the sight of freshly pressed dress pants, a white undershirt, and a black tailcoat.

Alfred’s room.

His stomach twisted as memories of meeting the man for tea in here what felt like centuries ago played in front of his eyes before he pushed them back and focused again on Alfred and the baby, who the butler was gently unwrapping the leather jacket from around. The kid started to squirm almost immediately at the feeling of cold air against his skin, a telltale hitch in his breathing all the warning given before his cries began to fill the room.

And just like that, anger was all Jason could feel, his eyes catching onto the small bruises littering the baby’s skin, more and more becoming visible as Alfred carefully cleaned off the dirt and grime with a wet cloth. Jason gritted his teeth, hands curling into fists at his sides, and was about to open his mouth to say something when Alfred cut him off.

“Children are innately sensitive to the emotions around them, Master Jason.” A gentle warning to remind Jason that he needed to stay calm. But _fuck_ , Jason wanted to go resurrect those sons of bitches just to kill them again, and every single little whimper that escaped the boy wasn’t doing him any favors in the least.

And it _was_ a boy. Jason could see that now, as Alfred undid the fastenings on the soiled diaper, letting it hang looser on the boy. A way too fucking _tight_ diaper if the red marks pressed into the still pretty grimy skin were anything to go by. Instead of being relieved that the pressure against his stomach was gone, the kid grew louder, seeming to have absolutely no problem with making his discomfort known.

Not that Jason could blame him. If he was the kid, he’d be wailing his little head off too. Not even a year old and he’d already seen more of the dark side of humanity than most in their eighties probably saw. Jason knew what that felt like.

He didn’t notice the knowing look within Alfred’s eyes, the elderly butler having paused in his ministrations with the child to look at him, to take a moment to examine their prodigal son. The older man’s eyes softened at whatever he saw there.

“Master Jason,” Alfred began, cutting into Jason’s thoughts and causing his eyes to fly back up to the elderly butler’s. “I’m afraid that I’ll have to make a quick run to the attic to see if I can find the cloth diapers Master Thomas and Lady Martha used for Master Bruce when he was the size of your little one here. Do you think that you can hold down the fort until my return?”

_He’s not my little one._ The protest was on the tip of Jason’s tongue, honestly wondering when Alfred would get it; would understand that Jason wasn’t keeping the little guy. But the protest never made it further. Instead, he let out a quiet sigh before glancing at the time. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Very good, sir.” Alfred smiled, and something about the smile had Jason feeling more than a little wary, and inclined his head ever so slightly towards Jason before leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He sighed before turning towards the sniffling boy, wide, wet blue eyes meeting teal blue.

“Guess it’s just you and me ‘til ol’ Alfie gets back, huh?” He remarked. The boy made a small noise in the back of his throat, not exactly a cry which was a plus in Jason’s book, but not exactly a noise of happiness either.

Jason sighed again and pulled up a chair beside the bed before sitting down. He looked at the boy for another small moment, feeling a tug in his chest at just how _small_ the kid was, before reaching for the cloth Alfred had been cleaning him with, not missing the way he was squirming in obvious discomfort.

He shifted his jacket so that it was more under the boy before carefully moving the diaper out from under him a bit. The smell was noxious, further adding to Jason’s initial take on the situation that the kid had been left to his own stink for at least a couple days before he had shown up, and Jason was mildly proud of himself for removing the disgusting diaper fully without gagging once.

Though his eyes softened a moment later when a little cry left the small baby, the boy’s attention being drawn right back to his uncomfortable situation downstairs. “Yeah, yeah. I get it, kid,” Jason said softly. “It sucks, doesn’t it?” He very gently began to clean off the dirtied area, grimacing a little. The kid was gonna have one hell of a rash, that was for sure.

The boy hiccuped another cry in response, little trail tracks running down the sides of his cheeks. “It’s gonna be okay,” Jason promised him quietly, taking on a more serious tone. “I know I might not look like much, but I always keep my promises, and I promised that I’d find you a good place, now didn’t I?” He carefully lifted the boy up a little bit so that he could get him all nice and clean. “You’ve just gotta give me some time. But until then? I’ll figure out something.”

The first moment he got the chance, he’d look into some of his old contacts here in Gotham, see if he could scrounge up some money. Just enough to get the little guy the essentials until Jason was able to find him a place.

Shit, this was going to be a fucking nightmare. What was Jason even thinking? Alfred seemed good enough with the kid, and Alfred was the one who _really_ had the power in this fucked up family of theirs, so maybe he could just leave baby boy here with him and he’d keep Bruce at bay just long enough for Jason to find a home for the kid out there.

Or maybe he’d come back, and Bruce would have already shipped the kid off to an orphanage in Siberia or some shit like that.

Damn it. He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand, though his attention was back on the kid when the boy made another sound of distress. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jason confessed to him, voice nothing more than a whisper; as if the quieter he spoke it, the less true it would be. “So you’re just going to have to bear with me, champ.”

 Bear with him and hope that Jason didn’t do anything that’d scar the kid for life.

He looked down at the boy and smiled a little, nothing more than a faint upturn of his mouth. “All clean, buddy boy. Bet that feels a lot better now, huh?” The boy waved his little fists at him, wiggling a little, and Jason took that as a good sign.

Until the little mouth opened wide, and he started to cry again.

~*~

 

When Alfred arrived nearly fifteen minutes later, Jason was at his wits end. The boy had started wailing at the absolute top of his lungs and nothing Jason tried had worked on calming the kid down.

Jason looked to be one giant balled up mixture of frustration and desperation because the baby just _wouldn’t stop crying_ and he had _no fucking clue_ what to do because he’d never had to take care of a kid before and he felt like he was already screwing this thing up.

Alfred let out a soft sigh at the sight before him. The little boy was nearly dwarfed in Jason’s arms by the man’s height and broadness, and yet Jason was the one who looked like his life was about to end and _not_ the little boy who was red in the cheeks and gasping for air.

“Alfred!” Relief flooded Jason’s expression at seeing the old man, and he was by his side in an instant, trying to pass the boy off onto him. “I don’t know what I did, or what I didn’t do, or why he’s crying, but _fix it_.”

Alfred didn’t take the boy from Jason. Instead, he gently but firmly forced Jason to bring the small boy back against his chest. “Remember,” he chastised, “if you get upset, so will he.” He stepped away to set the bag he had brought down onto the bed. He unzipped it before pulling out a small bottle, filled with a white-ish liquid Jason assumed was some sort of formula. “You are merely lucky that the incident with Francis Grey and the subsequent de-aging occurred not too long ago.”

De-aging? Now _that_ was a story Jason wanted to hear about. He winced as baby boy’s cries reached a rather piercing decibel. Maybe another time. “You think he’s hungry?” He asked instead, eying the bottle and the condensation sliding down the side of it. Alfred must have just made it.

Alfred arched an eyebrow at him. “Wouldn’t you be?” Good point.

“Right.” He took the bottle from Alfred, knew enough to test it against his wrist to make sure it wasn’t a _horrible_ temperature, before gently trying to encourage the nipple of the bottle into the little guy’s mouth.

“Damn it, kid,” he muttered, the boy squirming too damn much to really get it anywhere close for now. Jason was somewhat terrified he’d drop him if he kept it up. “Come on. This is what you wanted, see?” He encouraged, hoping to God that Alfred was right about that. The tension eased in his shoulders when the little mouth finally latched onto the end of the bottle.

“Finally,” he breathed, feeling no small amount of relief. The kid was way more trouble than he was worth. Blue eyes stared up at him as their owner sucked greedily on his bottle, and Jason’s lips tugged upward the smallest hint of a fraction. “Told you, kid.”

Alfred watched the way Jason fed the baby gently, carefully, a considering look within the grey eyes. It had been a long time since he had gotten a moment alone with the second to grace these halls as Robin. The rare occurrences where he had gained a visual on the man the boy had become had always given a more baser look into what he was well on his way to becoming; into the raw anger he seemed to thrive on.

But Alfred saw none of that now. It was gone, if only for a moment, and he wondered if they had the small boy in Jason’s arms to thank for that. Jason had always taken to championing the lost children of Gotham. A quest that had begun when he had been one as well and had continued into his Robin years and beyond, as present events would have it seem.

Whether this situation would better the man or further his downward descent, Alfred thought, was something that only time would be able to tell.

           

~*~

 

“Home sweet home, little guy,” Jason remarked to the baby held in the crook of one arm, the bag Alfred had given him hanging over the opposite shoulder as he let them into the small apartment. An old safehouse he’d use here and there, but not one he’d really messed with in the past few months.

No response from the dozing boy in his arms, but Jason hadn’t really expected one. He shrugged his shoulder so the bag could slide down his arm. He let it drop near the foot of the donation store couch before carrying the little one back to the bedroom. “I know it’s not exactly the Ritz, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?” The sleeping boy let out a small breath, and Jason nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

He laid the boy in the middle of the bed and positioned pillows along the edges of the bed. There was a wary look within the teal eyes. That was good enough, right? And as long as he checked on the kid periodically while he was sleeping, nothing bad could happen.

A resolve Jason stuck with for all of a second before he was scooping the boy back up and holding him against his shoulder.

Better to be safe than sorry.

He rubbed the little guy’s back, ignoring how fucking _small_ the boy was because thinking about that was just going to get him all sorts of pissed off again, before crossing back into the living room to Alfred’s bag of goodies to see what was all in it.

He shifted through the contents, mind keeping careful inventory. A couple cloth diapers - Jason was going to have to get some of the disposable kind - a container of the formula powder shit that was _maybe_ about a fourth filled, a couple bottles, a couple old, faded onesies that probably dated back three or four decades that looked like they’d swim on the kid, and a small piece of paper with a number scrawled on it in perfect penmanship.

Alfred’s request for Jason to contact him if he needed anything.

Jason put everything back into the bag before looking at the piece of paper for a long moment, something unreadable flashing within his eyes. He brushed his thumb over it, a hesitation edging onto his expression, before his jaw tightened.

Jason was grateful for Alfred’s help, but accepting anything more from Alfred meant inviting in attention from Bruce.

And letting that bastard meddle in his life was the _last_ thing he wanted right now.

He crumpled it up and tossed it into the wastebasket without a second glance.  


End file.
